Jeanne Duval
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Wikipedia
Featured:  |
Jeanne Duval was a second-tier mulatto actress, and maintained a lifelong romantic association with French poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire. Poems which are dedicated to her or pay her homage are: 'Le Balcon', 'Parfum Exotique', 'La Chevelure', 'Le Serpent qui Danse', and 'Une charogne'. She lived at 6, rue de la Femme-sans-tête (Street of the Headless Woman), near the hôtel Pimodan (now the Hotel Lauzun), where Baudelaire lived.
Jeanne Duval also served as a main character in Caribbean author Nalo Hopkinson's, Salt Roads a work of historic fiction.
In addition, she is the inspiration for the short story "Black Venus" by Angela Carter.
Manet, a friend of Baudelaire, painted Duval in his 1862 painting Baudelaire's Mistress, Reclining. She was, by this time, going blind. Duval died of syphilis, later in 1862, and Baudelaire died five years later, also of syphilis.
